The Civil War North & South mini-series is divided into three separate “books:” Book I North & South, Book II Love & War, and Book III Heaven & Hell. Books I & II are very good, each with six episodes. It could have ended there. Heaven & Hell, meh. Couldn’t finish it. After multiple attempts.
I just finished the full three-season “North and South” show with Kirstie Allie as Virgilia. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire show.
I thought the three books (seasons) did a great job covering the pre-Civil War years, the war years, and the post-war reconstruction / westward expansion / Indian wars years. You just had to get into different moods for the theme of each of the three seasons. The Heaven & Hell third season started off awkwardly, with Bent just popping up again to exact his revenge on the Hazards and the Mains. He just shows up out of nowhere again and becomes a murderous psychopath.
There was too long of a gap in production between the second season and the third season and you could see all the actors and actresses had aged eight years, not one year.
The entire show brought home for me the real-life tragedies of so many of our people during those 25 years. It made me think a lot more about the human dimension of the Civil War than just the strategy, battles, dates and key officers of the war.
Virgilia and Ashton were certainly tragic figures in the show for entirely different reasons. They were very interesting female characters.
Thanks for bringing the show to my attention!